Sometimes the water is so scary that you have to run away from it.
Then run towards it, to show it who's boss!
Then run away from it again.
Archie cracks me up 🤣
And Jasper went out of his depth to have the first real swim I've ever seen from him! 😲
The dogs were definitely appreciating the reservoir as the temperature started to climb!
Jasper and Archie haven't seen each other in 4 weeks, so a game of chase was well overdue! 😍
The boys keeping cool this morning with some splashy zoomies 💜
#scentwork #lancashire #dogtraining
Today a serious incident occurred.
Archie got stuck in some long grass because he was surrounded by thistles.
He had to bark to bring me back so I could guide him out on a prickle-free path.
Luckily he's recovering well from his traumatic ordeal with the pointy menace and was not hurt during the event.
The little dog struggle is real 😬
And in other news, the baby bunnies were particularly brave while I was out walking the dogs this morning.
The boys didn't even realise they were there (Jasper knew but didn't care), but Willow definitely would've been helping herself to rabbit pie for breakfast if she'd had the chance!!
Tonight in Tricks Class we discussed a couple of different tricks/ideas/concepts for our more advanced dogs, and I wanted to share my thoughts and a few short clips of a very brief training session.
1. First of all, motivation is key. You need to find what motivates your dog and use that as a reward. I have one dog that will only work for food (or a toy with food in it) and one dog that will work for the sheer joy of working (#collielife). You then have to spend time building motivation for the reward. If you have a very motivated (high work drive) dog you may not need to do very much to switch them on, but the more energy your dog gives, the more you have to channel into behaviour you're trying to achieve. If my dogs aren't motivated to work within the first couple of minutes of getting their reward out, then I don't try training them. I just spend time building reward value. Otherwise I have to nag my dog, and that does not make for a successful training environment!
2. Holding things. It's a taught behaviour to hold a thing, though it can be captured if your dog has a natural hold through retrieve. When you want to add movement to a hold, your dog's static hold has to be solid. Its movement cues have to be solid. If your dog will only spin or twist 1 out of 5 times, or has to rely on a lure, it's not ready to move on. Below are a couple of clips of Djinn holding an item while taking movement cues. The hold isn't perfect. He's a bit mouthy with it. But that's excitement for the work, and can be eliminated with time. Once you have a solid hold on one item, you have to proof it with many items. I only used this rubber baton because he brought it to me (his way of asking me to play with him/engage with him so he can earn the toy), but he will hold a variety of different objects. Important to generalise this before adding more difficulty.
3. "That" heelwork position. The one you see a lot if you watch IGP, FCI, etc. It looks super cool and neat... but it's physica
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